1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, and in particular, it relates to an information processing apparatus capable of recording a photographic image of an object as well as sound.
2. Description of the Related Art
Development of smaller semiconductors and the progress of mounting technologies have contributed to the development of electronic cameras capable of recording sound in addition to the images of an object. Such electronic cameras have been available in the marketplace in recent years.
However, because sound comprises time-related information and images comprise space-related information, when recording sound it becomes necessary to designate the start of recording and end of recording. For example, when recording images and sound simultaneously, the recording of a photo image of an object at the time a release switch is pressed is all that is required for an image, but the designation of the timing of the ending of the recording is also required for sound.
Therefore, the simultaneous recording of image and sound becomes possible, for example, by creating a device in which the recording of sound begins as soon as the shooting is executed and the recording of sound is ended when a predetermined operation is executed. However, such a device presents the problem that the operation to end the recording of sound must be executed for each shooting to complete the operation.
In order to resolve the problem described above, a device is suggested, for example, in which the recording of sound is executed only for a predetermined time (for example, 10 seconds) while recording the photo image of the object when the release switch is pressed, which eliminates the need to execute an operation to end the recording of the sound.
However, such a device presents the problem that the recording of sound for longer than 10 seconds (or some other predetermined time) is not possible. Once shooting begins, the recording of sound is always enabled for 10 seconds, which makes it impossible to execute shooting in an unexpected situation during the recording of sound, hence a shooting opportunity may be lost.